San Diego County, San Diego Rat Control Situation:
Hi David, Is a UV blacklight still useful, exterior-wise, if it rains after the rodents leave their urine stains? I am in the process of performing exterior maintenance to better exclude my roof rats. 1) I have a 25 year old cedar shake roof in San Diego California with openings under each shake along the rake edge of the roof at the gable ends of my house. There's no drip edge, i.e. under the shakes I have roofing paper (now somewhat curled) that runs more or less up to and rests right atop the fascia board. Because I have skip sheathing, and since the cross section of a shake is a wedge that is up to one inch at the upper, thick end, this appears to create many huge entry points along the rake edges even though the sheathing is rabbeted into the fascia board. As a result, I'm thinking of getting a UV blacklight to use outside the house to sleuth for urine stains along the upper edge of the gable end shakes and fascia boards. My question is, how easily does the winter rain wash away the urine, rendering this a pointless exercise? 2) I noticed a new product called "rat-out gel" and was thinking of applying it along the rake edges mentioned above. Or, maybe I should just buy many rolls of X-Clude and use that instead. Or maybe both. Any comment? Thanks very much for your website, Doug
My response: First off, I do not have experience using UV lights to detect rat urine. But I do suspect that rain will severely limit the effectiveness of this approach. I have never heard of Rat-Out Gel or XClude, but I typically stick to physical barriers rather than repellent type devices. If your roof makes this impossible, you might have a tough time keeping the rats out.
San Diego Rat Control Tip of The Week
Animals that rats kill
The fact that rats pose several health risks and safety hazards makes them one of the most detested pests in many households. These rodents cause a whole lot of nuisance by disrupting the peace of your home with their scurrying and scratchy sounds when allowed to multiply and breed in your house. These reasons usually prompt many homeowners to look for the best possible way to get rid of them.
While trying to get rid of them, you need to also understand the fact that these rodents are capable of killing other animals. You might be wondering how an animal of this size can kill other animals. The fact is that rats are very aggressive animals with special skills when it comes to attacking their prey.
Although, the chances of this happening depend on many factors. For instance, rats will only kill or attempt to kill other animals when they are starving or they want to take over an area initially occupied by other rodents.
The most common animals that rats do attack and kill is mice. These two rodents share the same ecological niche; hence they often interact with each other. In the process of relating with one another, the scavenging instinct of rats might set in, prompting them to hunt and kill mice.
Asides from mice, rats also come in contact with and may kill cats and dogs. Cases like this occur once in a while and to only cats and dogs that are small in size or already suffering from preexisting illnesses.
Having shared this, if you are keeping a cat or dog as a pet in your house, chances are that the rats in your home will kill your pets when they have the opportunity to. Since rats are omnivorous, there are no limits to what they can feed on.
